its a problem because its a brainless decision that is more chore than meaningful, more purely luck based than not. There is no calculated risk, no player involvement, engagement, nor skill. For example, It's really silly to have things that are uncounterable. If i get air metal on meso, how are they going to kill it? Dox? get bombered. Bombers? get fightered, or just 1 cheap as chips aa turret. Naval? too slow. Try to remember that trying to do this in an uphill battle as well, against a player who has more metal to play with. Payoff must match player action and effort. Yolo area patrol map and build metal should not be a game winning, or hugely advantaging strategy. The alternative is not 'no fabbers taking mex'. It's reading the game, understanding the risks, and making player judgements and decisions that have a chance of actually punishing. Previously that was the case: if you over-expanded metal, you would not be able to use it all, and if your metal died, there was a good chance they had alot of units to keep denying that area. Like all things, there is a good middle ground to aim for here. I don't think the previous pacing was perfect, nor do i think the current pacing has hit the mark.
I think taking metal should be practically without risk and every player should do it asap. To me t1 mex are not to be the "risk and reward" thing you make them out to be. The loss when losing them is the income they would have produced. Not the cost that I needed to build them. Remember FA? Nobody ever lost a game there because they "overextended on t1 metal" and nobody ever complained about it lacking skillrequirements. t1 engineers were so cheap you spammed them nonstop quite often. t1 mex were so cheap they payed back after 18 seconds, if you lost them before you would lose as much metal as a single tank is worth. Or actually I think less. If you get air metal on meso without heavy fighter protection a single air fighter on a random "I will stop you" path will kill it. If you put in a lot of resources to get air then obviously you deserve to use it.
I just don't like the enormous emphasize on raiding at all. I want to see dox get a speed nerf and become better in confrotations with tanks. Because then, everything could become a viable option for weakening an opponent rather than the boring old dox. Really, think about how this would change both large planet matches and small planet matches. More variety, more fun.
I don't really think there has to be a huge difference. Dox could still have the high ROF that counters swarms, tanks would be less popcorn-y, etc. tbh, I don't know how it would make the meta change exactly but I do know that it would allow for a more dynamic army composistion. It would also (probably) make people more comfortable going T2. Right now tanks are the go-to frontline attack unit.
hmm, I could definitely see value in an experiment like that. Make dox have a speed of 12 and give them some buffs so they trade nearly even with tanks.
didn't rcbm basicaly do that with bots? personaly i am against that you rather could have compositions including grenadiers and cfabbers that i can see work with bolos spinners an infernos .. i don't see a need for dox be neccesary for a groundcomposition .. in that case the slammer is ratjer what you look for imo, gil es and bluehawks can be part of a composition as a second row unit ... so theoreticaly there are compositionoptions already ... so the question rather is when to make t2 viable or if it should be viable earlier ...
I only read through some of their basic economy changes and decided I don't think I like them, so dunno didnt play rcbm.
I know Statera had bots have a little bit over tanks. I think tanks were speed 8 and bots 10. Maybe 10 and 12. Both had doubled health of whatever the balance was on the first place- damage and health may have been tweaked as well.